General practicioners staged a protest in front of the government building at St. Mark's Square in Zagreb on Wednesday over the new health care bill, saying that the bill, if passed in Parliament, would be detrimental to the entire health care system.

GPs, who had started a work-to-rule strike on Tuesday, are opposed to the bill retaining the provision that 25 percent of doctors must remain employees of public health clinics, with no option to become independent contractors. They also announced they would dispute the legality of the bill at Constitutional Court.

Under Croatia’s current health care system, GPs – who were formerly all state employees with practices at local state-run health clinics – can opt to become a separate business entity contracted directly to the state’s public health fund, renting out health clinic’s facilities and equipment and providing primary health care to patients.

“If this bill gets passed, in five years’ time we will have no primary health care service to speak of, because doctors working in the system now will retire, and there will be no one left to replace them,” protester Vikica Krolo told N1.

Although the Health Ministry had previously agreed to liberalise the system and allow all doctors to choose if they want to become independent contractors, including expanding the option to include specialists such as gynaecologists or paediatricians, the idea was eventually dropped.

Several doctors’ associations said that keeping the current system will only serve as an incentive for more doctors to leave the country and increase the brain drain, after hundreds had already left abroad over the past several years.

“We don’t want to leave, we are being forced to leave, they won’t let us work,” another protester told N1.

The association of hospital doctors (HUBOL) said on Wednesday it supported fully their colleagues, and called for all their members and all physicians in the country to join the protest, which they described as the fight for health care system’s very survival.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Milan Kujundzic, who downplayed the reports of the doctors’ work-to-rule strike earlier on Wednesday, by saying that “there is no strike,” later in the day said he would meet with representatives of protesters to discuss their demands.

In spite from opposition from doctors, the health care bill was approved by government on Wednesday and sent to Parliament.

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